SHARE IN VIRTUES AND ABANDON FAULTS

The bee focuses only on the nectar of flowers. Similarly, we are urged by the Gurbani (Sri
Guru Granth Sahib, SGGS) to try to see good in everything. That is, we are asked to focus only on good in everything, not on bad.

The Gurbani
asks shunning
harmful conduct and mental habit patterns. We are here to deal with virtues
or good. Because only virtues or good can be conducive to Divine Llife (Gurmukh Lifestyle). Accordingly, the Gurbani time and again reminds us to make this our business
— leave behind our faults and be absorbed in virtues. This is possible when we
develop a mind that seeks only the good in everything. In the final analysis:
"Says Nanak, the mortal is emancipated only when all his faults are eradicated."

Where
there is false ego-sense (Haume or "I-am-ness"), there is the
consummate enemy called lust (Kaam). Where there is lust, there is the
compelling, coercive materialistic desire of indulging in sensory temptations.
Where there is desire, there is fear. This fear is the base of anger; it causes
greed; it creates attachment, jealousy, etc.

To avoid hurting our unripe ego,
we are always fearful to face our own faults in ourselves. But, faults that we
cannot face in ourselves we will hate when we see them in others. As a consequent
of this, we become evil-minded disparagers — habitual faultfinders, slanderers,
gossipers, backbiters and the detectors of others frailties. By doing so, our
false ego wants us think that we can make ourselves taller, so to speak, by exposing
the shortcomings or weaknesses of others. This is the play of the outgoing mind
that likes concentrating on nonessentials.

As we can see, the thinking or habit
of faultfinding is a psychological tumor of the instinctive or Mayaic mind. In other words,
when we find faults in somebody else, in truth we are reflecting our own flaws.
That is to say, the sore spot is located within our own instinctive mind. But
our ego-mind makes us insulate ourselves from the reality by hiding so far as
possible our own faults within us. In other words, the feeling or urge of finding
faults in others indicates that the seeds of that kind of faults or weaknesses
are present within us, and we are trying to suppress them by cutting off the heads
of others.

The One Parameshar lives in all. But in meanness we offend that
God in others and in ourselves. Observing others through the prism of false ego-sense
is a symptom and pastime of a worldly person called Manmukh in the Gurbani.
The daily life of such person engrossed in evil ways is full of its natural contentions,
contradictions, envy, usual competitions, selfishness, falsehood, etc. Consequently,
he ends up living a wrong life in all his worldly contacts and experiences; thus
wasting useful time and energy by undergoing tensions and strains, and creating
chaos within for himself and confusion without for others. Such person, due to
diminishment of his character or degradation of his soul, does not and cannot
know the happiness of selflessness and humbleness.

ਮਨਮੁਖ ਬੋਲਿ ਨ ਜਾਣਨ੍‍ੀ ਓਨਾ ਅੰਦਰਿ ਕਾਮੁ ਕ੍ਰੋਧੁ ਅਹੰਕਾਰੁ ॥:
Manmukh boli na jaananee onaa andari kaam krodh ahankaar....: The
Manmukhs (material beings) do not even know how to speak. They are filled with
lust, anger and false pride (i.e. all evil passions, which are the faults of the
same false ego-sense or Haume). They do not know the difference between
good and bad; they constantly think of corruption. In God's Court, they are called
to account, and they are judged to be false (sggs 1248).

The truth
is no one likes such habit. It is said that even an enlightened Giaanee
does not like unjust criticism. But, since a Giaanee is bound by his spiritual
wisdom to even-mindedness or nondefensiveness, he would bless those who find faults
in him and take any criticism as an aid and help on the way to his own ultimate
Improvement. But we novice react to the contrary. This is the difference
between a novice and a true Giaanee.

For us, the novice, the habit of finding faults
in others is very damaging. Because such habits are formidable barriers on the
spiritual path, thus biggest hurdles to one's holistic development and perfection
in life. Under the ego regime, we spend our energy and intelligence on superficialities
and so have neither time nor vitality left to focus and meditate on essentials.
A person who, like a trash-collector, is busy observing the "filth"
(weaknesses) of others gets a false conviction of superiority. As a result, he
begins to think either he has no weakness or he is qualified to appraise others.
Blinded by the narrow obsessions of material considerations, the majority of us
do not want to know ourselves. But we want to know everything about others! We
want to find faults in others, but not in ourselves. We want to see good in others,
but not in ourselves! Thus, condemning others makes us oblivious of our own faults,
which then flourish unchecked. As indicated in the Gurbani, a Maya stricken ego-mind
is like a fly that lands only on "filth": moral sores of others.

The Gurbani asks us not to allow indulgence in
faultfinding and calumny for even one moment. Because such detachment is necessary
for cleansing the existing dross from the mind and intellect, and for not adding
more into it. Also, it hastens one's spiritual unfoldment by freeing the mind
and energy from focusing on the shortcomings of others, allowing us to concentrate
on our own weaknesses. Otherwise we will never be able to improve our lives and
attain perfection ("Jeevan Padvee").

Therefore, we are challenged by the Gurbani to renounce
our "evil ways" — judge not others, judge yourself. By exposing our own faults
to the healing touch of the discerning introspection, self-analysis, self-control
and meditation, we can protect our nature from becoming festered and poisoned
by our misguided intelligence. In the soul regime, one who can constantly look
within to examine and judge himself becomes the "real judge". He then sees "others"
in "him" and "him" in "others".